The Glass Pavilion

Part of a world-class museum, the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art offers art glass exhibits and offers visitors opportunities to watch artists at work.

Toledo has long been known as the Glass City with an economy built, in part, by several major glass manufacturing factories. Corporations such as Libbey Glass, Owens Illinois, Johns-Manville, and Owens Corning employed thousands who pressed, blew, and polished the nation’s drinking glasses, pickle bottles, windshields, and lightbulbs. Innovation and invention ruled the factory floor, making Toledo the king of glass.

In 1962 the Toledo Museum of Art hosted a workshop during which renowned potter Harvey Littleton worked with engineer Dominick Labino and retired glassblowers to explore glass-blowing as an art form. In a shed on the museum grounds, the Studio Glass Movement was born. To celebrate Toledo’s glass heritage, in 2006 the museum opened the Glass Pavilion to display more than 5000 works of art glass and to offer artists, and the public, space to work and create. The Glass Pavilion is a work of art in and of itself. Designed by the Tokyo firm, SANAA, Ltd., the Pavilion’s inner and outer walls are made of 360 glass panels that curve and flow to erase the boundaries between objects of art and the act of creation. Visitors will experience a transparent flow between the vision of artists and the objects displayed throughout the space.

Notes for Travelers

The Toledo Museum of Art is ranked as one of the top ten museums in the United States with collections ranging across the ages. Plan on spending a full day to view its outstanding collections.

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